Come Live with Me

Upscale Manhattanites Barton and Diana Kendrick have what they consider a modern marriage, where they enjoy spending time together, but enjoy their time apart embarking on their individual endeavors even more. Bart's individual time is largely spent with his mistress, Austrian refugee Johanna Jahns, which she's Anglicized to Johnny Jones to feel more American. US Immigration has finally caught up with Johnny, who has long outstayed her temporary passport and will thus be immediately deported back to Austria. However, Barney Grogan, the immigration official who has found her and admires her pluck in dealing with the situation up front, gives her some unofficial advice on how to stay legally in the US and one week to accomplish it: get married to a US citizen. Bart would like her to be his wife but cannot accomplish it in a week. As such, she is forced to go searching for a husband on her own. Who she finds is penniless Bill Smith, a country boy who has come to the city to become a writer, he yet to sell any of his stories. In agreeing to Johnny's proposition to marry him for a fee, Bill, to show that he is going into the situation with integrity, wants only $17.80/week payment from her, just enough for him to live, while they agree to meet once a week for that payment, which he fully intends to pay back once he gets back on his feet from his writing. While Bill ends up writing about his "marriage", what he does not anticipate is falling in love with Johnny in the process which is evident in the story. Things for the collective change when a publisher shows some interest in buying Bill's yet unfinished story, the firm owned by the Kendricks, Diana who vets the submissions. In the Kendricks' meeting with Bill, who in turn does not realize that Bart is the other married man, Diana quickly comes to this conclusion, and while she still does like Bill's story and his writing, forces Bart to provide Bill with a significant advance so that Bill can enter into the situation in his pursuit of Johnny on a more even playing field. In Bart planning on marrying Johnny, Johnny asks Bill for a divorce. With he repaying her and, thus, being no longer contractually obligated to her, Bill refuses to sign any divorce papers until Johnny gets to know him, which she can only do by seeing him in his element back on the farm owned by his loving grandmother.